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[This Document is the Property of His Britannic Majesty's Government392
¡RECP REGE 5 NOVOY
[B]
CHINA RAILWAYS.
CONFIDENTIAL.
[October 26.]
SECTION 1.
[39465]
(No. 283.) Sir,
No. 1.
Sir Edward Grey to Mr. Bryce.
Foreign Office, October 26, 1909. IN answer to the American Ambassador's enquiry about the Hu-Kuang Itailway Loan, I gave him to-day a memorandum, of which a copy is enclosed.*
I told him it explained clearly that the delay was not due to any want of good-will on our part; as I had remarked to him once before, we wished we had known earlier that the Americans wished to participate, as we should have been glad to have had them as partners. The memorandum showed that the whole difficulty now was with regard to the distribution of engineers, and it dealt with the suggestions we had made for meeting this difficulty. It would be very helpful if the American Government, after considering the memorandum, could suggest any means of easing this situation.
The American Ambassador said that the impression derived from Peking, he assumed from a German source, had been that we were really standing in the way, and not the Germans.
I replied that it was possible that the Germans might have represented that the obstacle now was our refusal to give them compensation out of the Canton-Hankow Railway in respect of the equal sacrifice which they were asked to make with us on the Hankow-Szechuan Railway. The memorandum explained the German point of view, but as a matter of fact the real obstacle was not our refusal to grant compensation, but the German demand for this compensation.
* Printed separately.
[2471 cc-1
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I am, &c.
E. GREY.
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